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Either way it was disgusting, and I was in no hurry to be in close quarters with Mayhew again. Instead I had a fact-gathering mission in mind. I’d checked the girls’ files when Tyler had shown them to me and confirmed the whereabouts of their bodies. Misty and Angie were both in the Medical Examiner’s office, and it stood to reason Trish would still be there as well.
If I was going to walk into a city building without any sort of official documentation, I couldn’t do it alone. I was going to need help, preferably of the vampiric variety, and for once my initial reaction wasn’t to call Holden. As much as I wanted the vampire on my side with this, I was going to have to be careful how often I called on him for non-council help. Rebecca ordering him to assist me was one thing. Problem was, Holden had a bad habit of demanding quid pro quo when I asked him for favors.
I’d already promised him something over
Christmas he hadn’t yet called me on. It was only a matter of time before he made me pay the piper, and it would mean spending a night with him. We hadn’t gone over the finer points of what that meant, but I had a pretty good idea.
Instead I was going to go to Brigit. She was a bubbly, buxom blonde and often proved helpful when a distraction was called for. Better yet, she had proven to be naturally gifted with the thrall. She was also my vampire ward, and with my power level it meant she was bound, on some level, to obey me. The bond would be stronger if I’d actually sired her, but worked well enough to serve my purposes.
It was also unlikely Bri would ask me to sleep with her as recompense for the night ahead, so she had one up on Holden there.
The walk from the 76th Precinct to Brigit’s apartment in Chelsea was long and cold. February was proving to be abnormally chilly in the city this year, with temperatures in the low twenties almost every day and dipping into the teens overnight. For a coastal city like New York, it was freakish enough to drive the average citizen indoors. What remained were the barren, frost-tinged streets of a massive city, seemingly stripped of all life.
It made it hard to miss the vampire peeling across 30th Street like a bat out of hell. Vampires moved so fast it was usually impossible for human eyes to see them if they ran at full tilt. At best, a streak of color and displaced air would be the only indication something had passed you. In this case, something had hobbled the vampire badly enough it was running at a mere marathon pace.
What the fuck?
I sped up my walk until I was at the corner of the street, then looked in the direction the vampire had come from. My well-honed fight instincts saved me in time. I stepped back an instant before Shane Hewitt collided with me. He staggered to a halt, panting, his hands braced on his thighs as he tried to regain his breath.
This was why humans made terrible rogue hunters.
In that moment, I missed my old job like a severed limb.
“Tri…bunal…Leader.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Skip the officials. What’s going on?”
“Rogue.”
“Obviously, thanks. Who?” We’d issued so many warrants the week before it was hard to keep track of the outstanding ones.
“Jason…Kani…kos…”
Oh God, The Greek. It would take Hewitt all night to puff the name out.
“How long have you been chasing him?”
“Since…Lexington…and…23rd.”
“Why is he limping?”
“Shot…him.”
“You know the head usually works better than the leg, right?”
Shane didn’t have a reply. Instead he lifted his head and glowered at me. Another expression like that and I’d start thinking he was taking notes from Juan Carlos.
“Want some help?”
For a moment he looked insulted, then a wave of harsh coughing tumbled out of his lungs, and he nodded. “I’d appreciate it.”
I didn’t wait for a more formal invitation. My SIG was out of the shoulder holster and the safety flicked off before he’d finished saying “it”. The gun felt cold in the winter air, its metal body warming under my grip. God, it was nice to have a reason to use it again.
I was also glad I’d opted for my good riding boots tonight. Knee-high black leather with a thick black sole and no heel to speak of, they weren’t the most fashionable shoes in my warehouse, but they were perfect for running and could handle a little ass-kicking on the side. I didn’t wait to see if Shane would be able to keep up. The vampire was already well ahead of us, and only the gunshot wound would keep him slow enough for me to catch. Once he’d forced the bullet out, it might be days before we found him again.
Considering we’d issued a warrant on The Greek because he had a penchant for eating whole families, I didn’t want to see him live out another night in my city.
Running felt good, freeing. Being able to chase something fed both of my natures. The wolf loved the hunt, the vampire loved the speed. Both aspects loved the kill, so finding the vampire would feed me on a very base level. As a predator, it would sate my appetite long enough I could continue to keep up the human façade I fought so hard to project.
